Magnetic polymer particles are of general utility in various medical and biochemical fields, for example as transport vehicles for the delivery of pharmaceutical products, for diagnostic purposes, for separation and for synthetic purposes. Such particles rely upon their magnetic properties in order to perform these functions. In diagnostic assay applications, for example, application of a magnetic field to a sample containing an analyte bound to magnetic polymer particles allows the isolation of the analyte without the use of centrifugation or filtration and in therapeutic applications, for example, application of a magnetic field to the patient may serve to target drug-carrying magnetic polymer particles to a desired body site.
By magnetic is meant herein that the polymer particles contain superparamagnetic crystals. Thus the magnetic polymer particles are magnetically displaceable but are not permanently magnetizable. Many processes for preparing magnetic polymer particles are known, a large number of which involve preparing maghemite- or magnetite-containing polymer particles from pre-formed magnetic iron oxides, e.g. magnetite. Some of processes involved are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,267 (Ugelstad) the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Thus U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,267 outlines a number of limitations with regard to the processes which preceded it; these include difficulty in obtaining magnetic particles of similar size and/or of homogeneous or uniform magnetic properties, as well as a more general problem relating to the difficulty of incorporating magnetic material inside the cavities of porous polymer particles.
With deposition taking place principally on the surface, or in large open cavities, leaching of magnetic particles, which shortens the useful lifetime of magnetic polymer particles in the applications to which they are put, was consequently problematic.
In order to overcome these disadvantages, U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,267 proposed a preparative method whereby, in its simplest form, porous polymer particles are impregnated with solutions of iron compounds whereafter the iron is precipitated, for instance by raising the pH value. The precipitated iron compounds may then be converted to superparamagnetic iron oxide crystals by heating.
To produce porous magnetic polymer particles having magnetic material disposed within the polymer pores, U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,267 advocated the use of porous polymer particles having surface functional groups which serve to draw the iron ions into the polymer particles. These functional groups could either result from the use of functionalized comonomers in the production of the polymer or from post-polymerization treatment of the polymer to introduce the functional groups, e.g. by coupling to or transformation of existing groups on the polymer surface.
Whilst the invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,267 does in part solve the problem of producing magnetic polymer particles which have more homogeneous magnetic properties, the problem of leaching of the superparamagnetic crystals from the polymer particles remains.